Egypt's Sinai emerges as new theater for jihad

Egyptian army personnel supervise the destruction of tunnels Tuesday between Egypt and the Gaza Strip at the border, near the town of Rafah, northern Sinai, Egypt. Tunnels between Egypt and Gaza have been used to smuggle everything from weapons to cigarettes and fuel.

Photo: Associated Press

CAIRO — An Egyptian doctor once close to Osama bin Laden is bringing together multiple al-Qaida-inspired militant groups in Egypt's Sinai to fight the country's military, as the lawless peninsula emerges as a new theater for jihad, according to Egyptian intelligence and security officials.

There have been other signs of a dangerous shift in the longtime turmoil in the peninsula bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip since the military's July 3 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, the officials say.

With the shifts, Sinai's instability is becoming more regionalized and threatens to turn into an outright insurgency.

Sinai has seen an influx of foreign fighters over the past two months, including several hundred Yemenis.

Several militant groups that long operated in the area to establish an Islamic Caliphate and attack their traditional enemy Israel have joined others in declaring formally that their objective now is to battle Egypt's military.

Sinai also has become the focus of attention among major regional jihadi groups.

A leader of al-Qaida's Iraqi branch, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, last weekend called on Egyptians to fight the military, as did al-Qaida's top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

The militant considered the most dangerous man in the Sahara — one-eyed terror leader Moktar Belmoktar, a former member of al-Qaida's North Africa branch — joined forces with a Mali-based jihadi group last month and vowed attacks in Egypt.

Topping the most wanted list in Sinai is Ramzi Mawafi, a doctor who joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Mawafi, 61, escaped from an Egyptian prison in 2011 during a massive jailbreak in which Morsi and more than a dozen Muslim Brotherhood members were freed amid the chaos of the uprising against Hosni Mubarak.

Mawafi is now believed to be in Sinai coordinating among militant groups and helping arrange money and weapons, said four officials from military intelligence, the military and the security forces.

Sinai's disparate militant groups are now “on the same page, in full cooperation in the face of the same threat,” said Gen. Sherif Ismail, a recently retired security adviser to the governor of Northern Sinai.

He said the groups are inspired by al-Qaida, but not necessarily linked to the mother group.

Morsi's fall opened the way for an escalation by Sinai's jihadis.

Most militants had seen Morsi as too willing to compromise in bringing rule by Islamic Shariah law in Egypt. But his removal by the military, backed by liberals, was seen as an attack on Islam.

More importantly, it ended the policy Morsi pursued during his year in office of negotiating with Sinai armed groups, restraining security operations against them in return for a halt in attacks on the military.

Now, the military has stepped up operations.

On Tuesday, helicopter gunships struck suspected militant hideouts in several villages near the borders with Israel and Gaza, killing at least eight and wounding 15, the state news agency MENA announced.

The number of jihadi groups operating in Sinai's rugged, mountainous deserts has mushroomed over recent years, believed to have thousands of fighters.

An Egyptian military official in el-Arish said jihadis run at least nine main training camps in Sinai, hidden in villages controlled by allied tribes or in mountainous regions.

Ismail el-Iskandarani, a researcher at the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic rights who writes extensively about Sinai, says it's hard to pin down the number of militants or camps because local jihadis hide in homes among their own families after carrying out hit-and-run attacks.

He said there is also no single leader, with small cells of differing ideologies. The situation is further complicated by the overlap of militants and criminal networks involved in smuggling, sometimes with the involvement of corrupt police officials. “Different security agencies are meddling in making it hard to tell who is doing what,” he said.

So far, Egypt's military has not launched a major offensive against armed groups in Sinai. El-Iskandarani believes the generals are wary of a sparking a wider confrontation with disgruntled Bedouin tribes. Also, Sinai jihadis have powerful new arsenals of heavy anti-aircraft guns, rockets and other weapons smuggled from Libya.